Prison Break - Baby version

Just watch it.

Happy Birthday!

We had birthday parties for Alden who turned one on Oct 3. He had a lot of fun since he got to eat all the sugar he doesn't normally get to eat. :D

On Saturday, his actual birthday, we had a small party with some friends. We had pulled pork sandwiches and decorated cupcakes. Yearim made a Pororo cupcake, Alden's favorite TV character. :D

On Sunday, we had family over, and had Korean style 1st birthday party. We had lots of Korean food, and Alden got to do 돌잡이, which is to choose from a few items that represent different things. Alden had just woken up, and he wasn't really up to doing anything, so he didn't end up grabbing anything... Well, after we put everything away, he did grab the pencils.. So I guess that means Alden's going to be really smart. lol. It was fun to have all the family over.

I will put some more pictures later when I get to it. lol. It's hard to try to be on the computer when I have a baby who's addicted to videos on Youtube and knows that touching the mouse and typing on the keyboard will get his videos to play. ha ha.

Updates

Ok.. I've got to give everyone updates on how much Alden's improved on fun skills before it gets too late. As you've probably notice in the picture above, he can stand by himself now. He will sit himself up into a squatting position (we call it the Kimchi squat) and slowly push himself and into and stance. We think he's totally got the balance and everything to be able to walk, but he just won't do it. He just gets right back on his knees and starts crawling again. But when he does stand up, he can stay there for quite a while, keeping his balance.

Before I get too much into his new motor skills, I'll talk more about his language abilities. He's learned more words now. He can say, BALL, BOOK, BOO (That's what he calls his pacifier), All Done, and DADDY in English. He can say Bool (light), An Dwei (May not/No), and Dwei (May/Yes) in Korean, in addition to the words he could say before. He understands much more Korean than he does English, including, "Where is...?" "Do you want to eat," "Do you want water," and many other things that sometimes he pretends he can't understand. He mostly knows what people are referred to as, such as Grandma, aunt, uncle, etc., in Korean. He can also point to somewhere on his body when asked, "Where is your belly button?" I think this one is a little hard for him because I don't think he's ever seen his own belly button. He's got a big belly. So most of the times, he just points to his side, and today, he pointed at his butt. When he gets really upset, he screams, "An Dwei!" and when he wants to do something that we don't let him, he screams, "Dwei!" He's really clever, and he's learning more and more everyday.

He can also feed himself with the spoon only if there's already food on it, meaning, he can grab the spoon, and put it successfully into his mouth without swinging the spoon off to the side and making the food fly away. (I haven't ventured with liquids yet. Just staying with rice and stuff for now.)

He also likes to play with balls. He will throw them and make them roll away, point directly at them, and chase them and repeat. He's figured out that if the balls roll into under the furniture, they don't disappear. So he will get down low on the floow and try to look for the balls. It's so cute to see him get low on the floor flat, looking for the ball he lost. He's also learned that he shouldn't try to crawl under the coffee table since he'll just end up getting stuck or bonk his head, so he usually crawls around it to get to his ball. (He's gotten pretty good at throwing things, by the way.)

He has his steering wheel that makes sounds from his new stroller, and we let him play with it in the car while we drive around. He likes to push the music button and dance to it, and also push on the rev button at the same time and make the car noise (Brrrrr... something like that).

Speaking of dancing, he'll dance to almost any music. He likes to lip sink and dance to the beat. If you sing one of his favorite songs, you're sure to witness him lip sinking and dancing, right on the spot.

He's also discovered the cupboards in the kitchen! They are the perfect size for him to just open and close, and he'll open his favorite cupboard and keep taking out a box of rice cereal and putting it back in there. We're a little worried that he'll smack his finger in the door, but so far, he hasn't done it yet... There used to be all the baby-proof stuff attached to those cupboards when my family first moved into the house, but we removed them all 7 years ago.. There wasn't any plan for any babies in the house yet. lol.

He's also started to get really loud. He'll just randomly start yelling whatever comes to his mind. He usually stops when I yell random things back at him, but sometimes we compete to see who can go longer. He usually wins.

He's completely combined all the animals into one kind. Whenever he sees any animal, I mean any kind, he will start growling. One day, he kept growling at random times all throughout the day, and I thought it was so weird. Finally, he pointed at my shirt and growled, and I realized that I was wearing a shirt that had a teddy bear on it! Today, we were driving down to Carl's Jr., and we were stopped at an intersection. Alden all of a sudden started growling, and I thought he was growling at the trees or something. We finally realized that we were stopped right in front of Panda Express, and he was starring at the giant picture of panda on the sign!! Ha ha.

He is so much fun, and I'm so sad, he takes up too much of my time for me to take more pictures and share them with you!!! I'm sure there's millions of things that I've missed, and I'll mention more of them as I go. He has his 1-year check up on Wednesday, so I can keep everyone posted on his physical developments. :D

Singing the ABC song

Alden really enjoys mouthing to the songs. He doesn't make any sounds, though. lol. This is a video of him singing to the ABC song.

It's good to be home

Well, we are back. I got really lazy at the end of our trip in Korea. Well, more like really, extremely busy. We were going out to downtown everyday, which took us 2 hours one-way, or we were traveling down to Ulsan, which took 5 hours each time we traveled.... By the time we got home and I had an access to a computer, I was so exhuasted to do anything besides briefly check my email. Anyway, we had a great time in Korea, even tho we were so tired. Maybe I'll upload the pictures later if I get around to it. But I thought I shouldn't get behind and just try to catch up for the next ten years... lol.

To update everyone, Joe and I are staying with my mom who lives in Provo. We have a nice bedroom in the basement, big enough to fit a bed and a desk for us on one side of the bed, and then a crib and all the baby stuff in the other half of the room. lol. It's very generous for my mom and my family to let us stay with them, and we're really grateful to be able to stay here. Alden's loving it being here! He gets to crawl around in a big living room, gets to climb up the stairs, eat yummy food, and play with his aunts and grandma. He has lots of room, and i think it's the best thing ever! :D He gets really active and sometimes uncontrollable crawling (almost flying like a hover craft) around the house.

Joe started school last week. I can't believe it's already been 2 weeks since school started! I had to stop him from taking 20.5 credits again(!) but he settled with 17.5, although he will be auditing another 3 credit class and will be doing most of the homework anyway......

Well, now that Alden seems like he'll have a stable sleep schedule, i will try to update the blog more often. Below is a video of him crawling up the stairs. (I've really got to get some baby gates soon...)

Singing to his favorite song

One of the songs from Pororo called, Barabam, is Alden's favorite. If we start singing the song, he will mouth the words with us, although he doesn't make the sounds. It's so fun to see him try though.

Watching Youtube. :D

This is a video of Alden watching his all time favorite tv show called Pororo. We brought a couple of DVDs back from Korea for him but most of the times we just let him watch it through Youtube, just like in this video. He loves that show and he likes to dance to the songs. You can also see, when he picks up the Korean bride doll, he bows his head to say hello, korean style. :D